Welcome to the family Christmas letter. I didn't manage to get it out on time (heck half my cards are still waiting to get addressed and my parents christmas present is one of them. So here goes
This year has been one of happiness and heartache for our family.
John, after being employed with Sun Microsystems for 13 years was laid off at the end of January. Within two weeks he was hired at a friend's startup. He no longer worked from home which was an adjustment for the whole family. He left the startup in September for a position in Oracle. He started serving in Awana again in the fall after taking the last year off. He also continued to be the Den Leader for Neil's cub scout den. The den got so big that it was split and John now has 6 boys at our house just about every Monday. He still enjoys running but hasn't managed to get out to do it much.
Traci wrapped up the remaining reconstruction surgery in January and was cleared in March by the oncologists and surgeons to get back to life. Easier said than done as she was spiraling into depression. I won't go into the details but it was ugly. John got her to the gym and she took up running in preparation for a
sprint tri in early May. In June she tore her calf and entered physical therapy. She took some time with girlfriends on a weekend trip to
Seattle (so much cheaper than therapy). She ran two more 5k's in October and November and hopes to be able to continue. She still homeschools the kids and has become a reviewer for homeschool products.
Claire is now 14 and a freshman. We continue to school her at home. She enjoys singing in the high school level choir. She has been babysitting for a lot of people lately and saving up for summer camps. She is also a well loved volunteer on the toddler hall and Cubbies. She has become quite the accomplished baker. Traci hasn't had to make a batch of cookies in over a year. You can find her on facebook most days. She is still taller than Traci and working on passing John.
Hannah is almost 13. She can't wait to turn 13 in order to get her own facebook account. She still plays the piano but doesn't take lessons anymore. She too is becoming quite the baker. She loves to draw. Her math lessons often have a doodling theme and coloring scheme making them fun to grade. She continues to serve in the Kindergarten sunday school class and in Cubbies.
Ian continues to play baseball spring and fall. He just earned his arrow of light award ( the highest award a cub scout can earn) a few weeks back. He is eagerly looking forward to joining the Boy Scout Troop at our church. He has started taking some responsibilities on around the house because when you camp with the boy scouts the youth are on their own. We have seen great growth in his attitude just in the two months he has been interviewing a troop.
Neil played baseball in the spring and soccer this past fall. He LOVES soccer. It is a natural fit for his bouncy personality. He is a wolf scout this year enjoying a new pack with his dad. He is in the second grade absorbing information like a sponge. He continues to excel in math and science. He still loves the Wii but can also be found swinging away on the playset out back.
Avery at 6 is catching up to Neil in height. She played soccer in the fall too. She just loved the pink uniform! She will be taking the spring off of soccer since she had many leg pain complaints over the fall. We took her in early for her annual orthopedic appointment and it looks like she will have surgery again sometime in 2011. The original bone tumor is coming back but it is another one in the same knee that is giving her trouble this time. We go back in February (back on the every six month plan) to evaluate her limb length discrepancy and discuss surgery. She is also a Daisy scout gearing up for cookie sales in January! Other than that she is very much the princess, attitude and all around her.
The family took two trips this year. One was to
Colorado with all of John's side of the family. 16 of us rented a huge mountain home and spent the week romping in the woods, playing cards and just enjoying each others company in a lovely setting. Our second trip was to Washington DC. We spent one week in the city and then headed down to Virginia to see friends and the Historic Triangle. It was a great two weeks filled with history and fun. We also took one other small weekend trip up to Palo Duro Canyon where we camped. It was too hot to hike so we explored Canyon, and Amarillo Texas, sightseeing along Route 66
Merry Christmas Everyone
The highlighted box tells him what his current worksheet is. He can choose to click on the learn button and will get a new window with a a couple of different video lessons to watch. If he feels confident in the concept he can proceed straight to the worksheet. With each question he gets multiple choice answers. I am not a huge fan of multiple choice on math, well I was when I was a student but not so much as a parent! However, I felt the choices did drive the student to complete the full problem without giving too much away in the answer set. For each question the child can request 3 hints and 1 video. When you take a look at their lesson it will tell you per problem what help they required. After each worksheet is completed the little persons at the bottom start to fill up. My 7 year old loved this part. You can see that he has all ready had some successes with certain concepts. As they work through the worksheets they can also unlock games that are just for fun. Several times I found my guy logging in just to play the games. Ten Marks also builds in tests. My frustration with the test scheduling was that the tests were off to the side and overlooked by my kids, so by the time they realized they had tests in the side bar they had two or three.
Basically any photo with Neil in it will be blurred the boy is in constant motion!
